By Derrick Kinney
One of the great ways to attract the affluent is to build your credibility, and being in the media, including your local media, is a great way to do that. How often do prospects or clients come into your office and say that they’ve heard someone in the media talking about a financial issue? If you were in the media, you would be the person they were talking about.
To break into the media is not as hard as you may think. It’s important to look at your personal communication style. Are you great at doing public seminars? Do you love to be in front of people? If so, then live television may be the best way for you to go. If the thought of live television makes you shake in your shoes, and you prefer to talk on the phone with clients, then radio may be the best option for you. If you prefer to communicate by email, then writing a newspaper story, or being one of the experts in a magazine article, may be the best route for you to take. The bottom line: Whatever your unique communication strength is, there’s a media opportunity that can help you exploit it and reach affluent customers.
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Whatever your unique communication strength is, there’s a media opportunity that can help you exploit it and reach affluent customers. |
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Anyone can do it
The first thing to do is to “own your space.” To do that you need to find the commonalities among your best clients. Look at your top 10 clients: Who do most of them work for? What is their profession or career area? Are they engineers? Professors? Small-business owners?
Let’s say, for example, you identified professors. There are going to be magazines and newsletters that professors receive and read on a regular basis. What if you went to the national organization that produces them and said, “I work with a lot of professors. Could I provide a guest column for this publication, because we specialize in the unique needs of educational professionals?” Typically, they would welcome your offer to help them fill their pages. You can then leverage that guest article as a tool to begin positioning yourself as a financial expert to professors and other education professionals.
You can use this simple strategy for whatever field you’re focused on. Each major industry—just like the insurance and financial-services industry—has certain trade magazines that are focused on the movers and shakers.
The local angle
In terms of your local media, one of the best ways to make an inroad is to let them know you’re available to serve as a financial expert. A great way to do this is to send an email or a fax to the local news people in your area. The gist of your pitch should be: When you need someone to talk about financial topics in an easy-to-understand way, please call me. The key words here are “easy to understand.” Letting the local media contacts know that you’re an expert is a great way to build your credibility.
So, how do you do find your local media contacts? Simply do a Google search and type in your city, state and the word “media,” and up will pop the websites of the media outlets in your local area. Then you can drill that down further to find television, radio and newspapers outlets, and the specific editors or producers you will need to contact. Send your information directly to those people.
Those of you who decide to pursue the media as part of your marketing will find that it builds tremendous credibility for you in your local area.
For more information on building a high-net-worth clientele, listen to AdvisorToday.com’s podcast “How to Attract and Retain Affluent Clients.”
Kinney tells you how to:
- position yourself as an income-retirement specialist
- prospect using “situational” referrals
- use a carve-out strategy to “recreate the paycheck”
- plus he offers scripts you can use to connect with affluent clients in a way they can relate to
This is an excerpt of a much longer speech given at the 2007 MDRT annual meeting. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Derrick Kinney is an Arlington, Texas-based financial advisor and the author of the Amazon.com bestseller Attract Your Ideal Clients. Contact him at 817-465-9800
or derrick@moreaffluentclients.com.
September 2007
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